The time before Christmas is usually in the sign of bustle and frenetic preparations. Suddenly there is a plenty of obligations and we tend to forget to look forward to Christmas. Therefore we would be happy if our advent concerts turned you into the right atmosphere. Stop for a while, leave baking cookies and shopping and unbend with your closest people while listening to lovely Christmas music. Before the start of the concert you and your children can stand around the illuminated Christmas tree and enjoy uncommon magic of forthcoming feast days.

Czech Christmas Mass

Jakub Jan Ryba

Stage performance on historical instruments

The aim of the performance is to make the audience acquainted with ancient Christmas story in musical and dancing pieces which originate in symbols and traditions of Bohemian and Moravian folk culture. The famous Ryba’s mass is not a mass only in liturgical sense. It’s kind of folk Christmas oratorio naturally evoking theatre form. Elements of folk humour in Ryba’s libretto are going to be ballanced by the principal of stage oratorio, that means sacred opera on stage. What’s interesting for the spectator is the permeation of chamber orchestra, choir, soloists and dancers into an organic complex.

In order to induce festive religious atmosphere the Pastorela in A by V. J. Kopřiva – Huc, Huc ad Regem was chosen as an overture. It’s going to be sung in Latin giving the listener the idea of sacred choir of angels “announcing shepherds big news”. The Pastorela will be followed by individual parts of Ryba’s Czech Christmas Mass (Kyria, Gloria…) in which the story of birth of Jesus and shepherds coming to the manger is told. Part of the live manger will be alongside the dancers also the musicians, choir and soloists. The team Košíková-Válek, Hradištan - Ensemble Baroque - continues in their successful co-operation on works: Rákoš Rákoczy (Janáček, for Janáčkek May, Ostrava 2009), Posy (Martinů, for Prague Spring, National Theatre Prague 2010), execution of baroque suits by G. F. Händel and J. S. Bach at Summer Academy of Baroque Music in 2009 and 2010.
The combination of The Czech Ensemble Baroque Orchestra playing on authentic musical instruments in classic tuning 430 Hz, singers specialized in “early music” and dancing company Hradišťan (which specializes, beside their own choreographies, on motional interpretation of significant pieces of music) promises a brand new way of artistic processing. From the musical point of view it’s going to be pure classicist interpretation. From the scenic point of view educated look on archetypes, perfect knowledge of folk Christmas customs and religiosity of the 18th – 19th century.